Don’t Be Afraid To Fail

Fear is a natural human emotion, wired into our systems to save our lives. But when we don’t control our fear, it controls our lives and keeps us from being the best version of ourselves.

A common kind of fear is the fear of failure. Look around you, new businesses spring up every all the time. Yet, there are as many people who are afraid to start their own business as there are entrepreneurs. Every day, these people pass up opportunities to make a difference and improve their own lives.

Maybe you’re one of such people, so afraid of letting yourself down/losing money/disappointing your friends and family that you’ve decided not to try anything that seems remotely risky. You’ve invented excuses for not starting, procrastinated and pretended there’s no desire to do more with yourself.

You have a choice: keep running and hiding or face your fear and conquer it.

If you’re ready to move forward, these are some ways to free yourself from the fear of failure:

1. Accept failure as a part of life.

No one is perfect, not you and not anyone you know. Basically, people are expected to fail and failing one or more times cannot make you a failure unless you stop trying. Believing this with all your heart will help you process inevitable failures as lessons, hold your head high when you fail and move on.

2. Understand that failure makes you better.

If failure is a lesson, then you can learn from it. And if learning from failure makes you a better person, you’ve made progress. It’s that straightforward. When you fail, find out why and use what you learn when you try again. It could make the difference.

3. Stop judging yourself, start developing yourself.

If you’ve been unkind to yourself, you need to stop today. You may have tried something and failed at it in the past. That’s not enough define you as weak, inadequate or unable to get things done. Believing in yourself and in your abilities is the first step to succeeding. Learning what you need to succeed is the second step, so read books, take classes, get a mentor and keep adding to your knowledge.

This post is part of Free Yourself, our personal independence series. Catch up on the previous installment here and contribute to the #FreeYourself conversation on Twitter and Instagram. You can also tell us how you deal with the fear of failure in the comments section below.